Almains

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A lively dance in duple time that was popular in sixteenth-century Germany, along with the music written for it ; a rivet or pin used to fasten plates together in old armour
2. A stately German court dance of the 1500s and the tune composed to accompany it ; a fastening rivet joining the pieces of a suit of medieval armour
3. A courtly German dance from the Renaissance period, performed to its characteristic music ; a rivet that held the plates of historic body armour together

Etymology: "Almains" is the plural of "almain," a noun that in English referred to a German, or to a dance associated with Germany. The word traces back to the French "allemand," meaning German, which comes from the Germanic name for the Alamanni, a confederation of tribes that lived along the upper Rhine. Because the plural form appears in older English writing, it is often seen in historical contexts about music, where "almains" names a stately dance form popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Synonyms: allemande